First-person account: Journalism student’s PR internship in NYC

Junior journalism major Anna Birk is in New York City this spring working for the Miss Universe Organization (MUO) as their public relations and social media intern, an exclusive opportunity offered by the Scripps College of Communication.

Here’s how Anna describes the experience so far:

The internship has been everything I have dreamed of and more. As someone who is both passionate about magazine writing and communication through social media, the experience that I've had so far has pushed me out of my comfort zone – in the best way possible. 

On the PR side, I've directly assisted on monitoring media alerts and writing press releases, and video scripts, for MUO. 

Recently, I've had the privilege of assisting on higher-level press releases regarding the current situation in Ukraine. Cold outreach pitches for press events have also been a task recently entrusted with me, along with an increasing amount of research into past titleholders and current events. 

I'm still participating as a copy editor for VARIANT magazine, so being able to translate my skills from college to the internship and vice-versa has been incredibly helpful. Miss Universe, Harnaaz Sandhu, writes monthly update letters for her fans, and I've assisted in editing them as well. 

On the social media side, my supervisor has assigned me the task of scheduling daily media posts, including birthdays, and other last-minute media videos. I've had several opportunities to be on-site for media days as well and have been able to practice my camera skills to film for social media. 

One of my favorite on-site media events was the opportunity to attend the “Cyrano” red carpet screening - easily one of the most stressful but rewarding events I've participated in thus far, and being able to meet the stars of the film was incredible.  

The screening/movie premiere was something I found out about no more than 24 hours prior to the start of the event. My boss looked at me and said, "Do you want to go to a movie premiere tomorrow?" Naturally, I said yes without hesitation. My role was essentially to be the travel manager, making sure everything went smoothly and we went where we were supposed to go. 

The screening event mirrored the beginning of a race; you wait, and wait, and build up anticipation and then all a sudden you're rushed in front of cameras, keeping an eye out to make sure everything goes smoothly. 

I arrived at the event before Harnaaz, and when her car pulled up, I was given a run-down of how the red carpet would go. We'd walk up, wait to be ushered in front of the movie-poster backsplash, I'd sprint through the cameras to the other side of the carpet and watch and wait for Harnaaz to signal me to come receive her Miss Universe sash – in which case, I'd hurry back on the carpet again. We needed to take photos both with sash, and without, hence all the running around. Before we even got the opportunity to go onto the carpet however, the leading actors and actresses arrived, halting the rest of the carpet. I think both Harnaaz and I were starstruck to see Peter Dinklage, Kelvin Harrison Jr., Haley Bennett and the director, Joe Wright.

After we finished our press appearance, we were able to interact with the other stars walking the carpet and the stars of the movie as well! I think Kelvin may have been more excited to see Harnaaz then either of us had anticipated – it was a cute moment. After many photo ops and interactions with others inside, we were escorted to our seats and watched a short introduction by the cast and crew on stage before the film began. The film was amazing, I was enthralled by the musical adaptation of the age-old tale of Cyrano and his pining love for Roxanne. 

I'm excited to continue making connections in the city as well! Maybe I'll go stand outside of The New Yorker or The New York Times buildings and talk to every person who walks in.